00 22/03/2013 15:59
'There is room in here for 300'????

Pope Francis is quoted to have said when he first visited the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace, "There is room in here for 300!" and that he would live simply and occupy less space. Let the picture speak for itself:


Floor plans of the second and third floors of the Apostolic Palace showing the official rooms used by the Pope on the second floor, and his private apartment on the third.

The private apartment on the third floor, following the numbering on the diagram, consists of:
1) Pope's bedroom, with adjoining bath, wardrobe and dressing area
2) Private chapel
3) Dining room
4) Pope's study
6) Secretaries' room
7) Medical clinic
8) Rooms for household help
9) Kitchen
(#5 is located on the second floor, and is the so-called Private Library where the Popes receive most individuals and small groups for private audiences.)

The overall size of the papal apartment has remained the same through the past several Popes - only the configuration has changed. For example, the reason extensive renovation had to be done before Benedict XVI could move into the Apostolic Palace in 2005 was that the papal bedroom and adjoining area had been adapted for John Paul II's illness to accommodate both his physical disabilities as well as medical equipment adequate to deal with life-threatening emergencies. Under Benedict XVI, a small medical clinic serves for emergency purposes.

Assuming Pope Francis did say what he said - perhaps in jest rather than irony - why would the Vatican Press Office publicize it the way it did? It sounds like a sanctimonious judgment on previous Popes - and surely Pope Francis is not sanctimonious! And is the Pope quoted right about living simply and occupying less space? It seems such a superfluous and unnecessary statement to make, given all that has been said before in the media about his simple lifestyle.

Not that anyone, even in the media, has ever reported the Pope's private apartment - at least since the time of Pius XII, to my own personal recollection - to be anything but simple and functional. In the floor plan, the Pope's bedroom is the same size as the bedrooms for the household help (about 10 ft x 8 ft, according to another floor plan I saw. All the other rooms, besides the two studies and the bedrooms, are common areas. [Also, incidentally, Benedict XVI's kitchen replaced a kitchen that had not been renovated or updated for more than three decades, which reportedly caused problems and great inconvenience to the Polish nuns taking care of John Paul II. A German firm donated all the equipment for the new kitchen. Will all that be torn down now and replaced with a microwave oven and a two-burner stove?]

I very much fear that the next big splash we shall hear is that the Pope will not have any household help (OK, msybe at least one), he will cook and clean up himself, and he will personally bring his laundry to the Vatican laundromat... we can carry this faux-hagiographical line ad absurdum! At least so far, he has not turned down the services of the papal valet (Sandro Mariotti, who replaced the Vatican thief). And I do believe he does not have a private secretary. Can even a superPope function without one?

One could also imagine that the Pope will ask his Vicar in Rome, Cardinal Vallini, to pick out, say, 6 or 10 (or maybe 300) poor people daily to attend his daily Mass at the Pope's private chapel and to have breakfast with him afterwards. Even John Paul II never thought of that!

Sorry to be sardonic, but does anyone in the Vatican Press Office not realize how absurd it is, in principle, to play up all this humility and simplicity thing the way they are doing? Not just because previous popes have been humble and simple in their own way, though the Vatican itself certainly never advertised them as such in the past - but because 'flaunting' virtue on behalf of the Pope makes him look like the Pharisee beating his breast, which is exactly the opposite of humility.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/03/2014 06:16]